I'd always understood they were deep into the backup thrusters, but this makes it sound a lot dicier than I originally thought.Ag87H2O said:
From Wilmore's account in that article -
"I don't know that we can come back to Earth at that point. I don't know if we can. And matter of fact, I'm thinking we probably can't. So there we are, loss of 6DOF control, four aft thrusters down, and I'm visualizing orbital mechanics. The space station is nose down. So we're not exactly level with the station, but below it. If you're below the station, you're moving faster. That's orbital mechanics. It's going to make you move away from the station. So I'm doing all of this in my mind. I don't know what control I have. What if I lose another thruster? What if we lose comm? What am I going to do?"
The Starliner docking was a lot dicier that I understood it to be. That is scary stuff. After the thruster problems, I completely understand why they were reluctant to return in Starliner and decided to wait for the next available Dragon.
I completely understand why NASA would say, "Any reliance on a backup in the primary role will not be approved for human flight."
If it's too dicey NASA might not want that vehicle anywhere near the space station.
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